TrueTomHarley

Next thing you know these yo-yos will be saying that Bethel cooked up the virus themselves so as to carry out this nefarious scheme.

Oh no, but they will be so wrong! It's the toilet paper manufacturers.

Next thing you know these yo-yos will be saying that Bethel cooked up the virus themselves so as to carry out this nefarious scheme.

You should have more trust in what your wife is doing, not using irony and perhaps even sarcasm about her in such a public way. (Read the comment about the decision to close the Kingdom Halls due to the the coronavirus)

The blockhead
Now you’re talking

Sometimes weeds turn out to have medicinal uses and are thus not so bad after all.
If I put my car keys in the wrong drawer, it does not mean they no longer exist. It doesn’t mean I can never drive my car again. Nor does it mean I should have my license revoked for being reckless. Instead, when I next need to drive, i discover my keys are not in the right place. I find them and put them there.
It is the same with weeds. If the org put them somewhere improper, that does not mean that Jehovah does. It does not mean that they are in the wrong drawer forever. It does not mean that the ones who put them in the wrong drawer ought have their spiritual license revoked. Nor need it be any huge priority to revisit the drawer of 2000 years ago and put them into another when you need not do anything with the updated status for the foreseeable future. They misjudged, perhaps. It happens.
Probably Revelation 2:2 accounts for it:  “I know your deeds, and your labor and endurance, and that you cannot tolerate bad men, and that you put to the test those who say they are apostles, but they are not, and you found them to be liars.“ You know how our people are about keeping without spot from spiritual contamination. When the Sons of Thunder raged about people not doing things right, they were not booted out from the 12 on that account. Brothers probably overreacted and will in time rethink it. There is hardly any hurry with people that have been dead and gone for 2000 years.
You mentioned before about how Bart Ehrman is not nearly so annoying when he is just recalling background history, and not desecrating the scriptures themselves. So when he highlights how almost immediately Christianity began to be divided into factions—moving up the date of such to the minute after Jesus died—whereas we would say till the death of the apostles, who themselves had to strain for all they were worth to keep it all together—and so Bart outlines how unity (which he never thought was there to begin with) promptly went the way of the four winds. JW HQ of the past doesn’t want to hear it, so brands them all false. I don’t think it is across the board. They have covered apologists, also ones like Waldenses throughout history and described them as mixed bags—doing some things right but not others, and probably Jehovah will take that into account.
People are only responsible for aging upon what they know, and Bart makes clear no one knew too much of anything after a myriad of self-styled reformers and reformaters pulled the faith this way or that. The germ that was left was still precious enough for people to die for, and in the resurrection they can fill in the blanks, like Phillip did for the eunich.
 
The departure from unity that begins directly after Jesus death is reflected here, where a dozen people weigh in with a dozen different takes, and only a few try to hold the fort—and they presently give up because it is the internet and the internet is not the congregation. Though those who oppose are united in their opposition, it is easy to see that they are not united themselves and each promote their own views which cannot long coexist with each other—unless it is all a spectacle for social media, where getting along is not important.

Sometimes weeds turn out to have medicinal uses and are thus not so bad after all.
If I put my car keys in the wrong drawer, it does not mean they no longer exist. It doesn’t mean I can never drive my car again. Nor does it mean I should have my license revoked for being reckless. Instead, when I next need to drive, i discover my keys are not in the right place. I find them and put them there.
It is the same with weeds. If the org put them somewhere improper, that does not mean that Jehovah does. It does not mean that they are in the wrong drawer forever. It does not mean that the ones who put them in the wrong drawer ought have their spiritual license revoked. Nor need it be any huge priority to revisit the drawer of 2000 years ago and put them into another when you need not do anything with the updated status for the foreseeable future. They misjudged, perhaps. It happens.
Probably Revelation 2:2 accounts for it:  “I know your deeds, and your labor and endurance, and that you cannot tolerate bad men, and that you put to the test those who say they are apostles, but they are not, and you found them to be liars.“ You know how our people are about keeping without spot from spiritual contamination. When the Sons of Thunder raged about people not doing things right, they were not booted out from the 12 on that account. Brothers probably overreacted and will in time rethink it. There is hardly any hurry with people that have been dead and gone for 2000 years.
You mentioned before about how Bart Ehrman is not nearly so annoying when he is just recalling background history, and not desecrating the scriptures themselves. So when he highlights how almost immediately Christianity began to be divided into factions—moving up the date of such to the minute after Jesus died—whereas we would say till the death of the apostles, who themselves had to strain for all they were worth to keep it all together—and so Bart outlines how unity (which he never thought was there to begin with) promptly went the way of the four winds. JW HQ of the past doesn’t want to hear it, so brands them all false. I don’t think it is across the board. They have covered apologists, also ones like Waldenses throughout history and described them as mixed bags—doing some things right but not others, and probably Jehovah will take that into account.
People are only responsible for aging upon what they know, and Bart makes clear no one knew too much of anything after a myriad of self-styled reformers and reformaters pulled the faith this way or that. The germ that was left was still precious enough for people to die for, and in the resurrection they can fill in the blanks, like Phillip did for the eunich.
 
The departure from unity that begins directly after Jesus death is reflected here, where a dozen people weigh in with a dozen different takes, and only a few try to hold the fort—and they presently give up because it is the internet and the internet is not the congregation. Though those who oppose are united in their opposition, it is easy to see that they are not united themselves and each promote their own views which cannot long coexist with each other—unless it is all a spectacle for social media, where getting along is not important.

I took note of how quickly everyone at the Kingdom Hall Sunday embraced a new routine. There had been an announcement about a need to “keep your greetings simple” and handshaking has instantly been replaced by elbow bumps, etc. There is an advantage to being ready to comply. I worked up a post about it 4 days ago, starting with how if you wore a mask like they do trick-or-treating, or even a Guy Fawkes mask, that would be one effective way to avoid touching your face.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/03/corona-as-of-march-8th.html

Naw. I had a correspondent there. He tells me that people barely paid attention to the match after your little quip.    

Wow. You know, when I post photos (seldom here) I generally make sure that they are either my own, of common domain, or acceptable to post if giving credit, which I do. There have been times, however, when when it just seems too picayune to go through all this for just a Insignificant post in social media that will be seen once and never again—who could possibly care? Your experience gives me me pause for thought.
I hope it was not me who was the bad boy that posted what made you trouble. Profuse apologies if so. 

There! You see? All you nasty people came in to carry on the way you do and you spoiled it for good people like me.

Let me know if you’d like Dr Mike ‘Ace’ Inhibitor, Professor Bill ‘Hammer’ Urabi, Robert Cumulus, or any of my other friends to chime with a remark in your defense and/or favor

What do these four new books that you have brought in out of nowhere have to do with anything? You have not stated a connection.

@TrueTomHarley Actually.... it was rogue lawyers looking to sue people who post other people's photos in this case.
In the past they only had to ask .... maybe file a DMCA request to the admin of the site......that was all that was necessary.
 
IP Lawyers in Europe and elsewhere have upped their game to skip the normal steps above straight to sending out threatening cease and desist letters with "penalties" they are asking for in the thousands per photo.
Needless to say for such low budget sites like this one..... you do the risk / reward calculation in your head.
 
Hence.... closed to new members..... and closed to the public and hopefully their snooping attorneys.
I am hoping the ad revenue from existing users will pay for itself / storage etc....
 
 

I didn’t know when I wrote that book that there would also be a TrueTom vs the Apostates, so I threw everything I knew or thought I knew into that chapter. For all the reasons that you say, I am going to revamp and truncate it for the next edition, on the fly.

I am through chapter one of this book, enjoying it much. There is an African way to tell a story, a lilting way that emphasizes the land and the people of the land. I am reminded of ‘Cry the Beloved Country,’ another African book (a novel) that runs parallel in some respects, with both tragedy and redemption.
Do you know what is odd? Click on the link for RNS. Drop down to the list of faiths at the bottom. Every faith under the sun is listed. Not Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not under Protestant, Not under Evangelical. Not under ‘Unaffiliated. Not under Alternative. Not under Other.
Reflect upon the irony of that. The religion, as evidenced by the reviewed book ‘No Greater Love’, that most plainly evokes John 15:13......“No one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his life in behalf of his friends”....is not even listed as a faith (unless it is so well-hidden that I could not find it, but considering the validation of John 15, you would think it would be emblazoned)
There is a lesson in this. I haven’t quite figured it out to put it into words, but there is a lesson. It may even be a good thing that it is as it is. Perhaps it is as though they say: “Here is a list of the religions of the world” and it is just as well that we are not on it.
 

This is not exactly on topic, but since I included mention of my books along with his, it is.
You said you ‘cringed’ at reading the Pedo chapter of Dear Mr Putin. Can I ask at what, beyond the obvious? 
I’ve said that in my last two books that I am top-heavy with CSA content, because I allowed myself to be driven by what was trending. I may rewrite some things. Already I am prepping Tom Irregardless for audio and in doing so am cleaning some of it up—substituting some ‘they’s where the original has ‘we’. Bit player & one-time hero of mine for his interview skills, Charlie Rose, has been sent out to pasture too, since he turned out to be a perv.
Bear in mind with Pedo that I consider it impossible to appeal to a certain type of person (Butler would be an example) who has suffered it, and so I don’t try. It is like trying to persuade a Trump person on the virtues of Obama, or vice verse. It can so rarely be done that it is a fool’s mission to go there. We are not nearly so rational as we like to pretend that we are.

It was. Sorry. I should have made that clear.

If this was directed at me, it had little to do with specific things you wrote. (There were a couple of things, but not very important in the long run. And I recently addressed a couple of those types of things elsewhere, a few weeks ago.) The topic itself seemed like it should have been treated separately, as it was not a Russia-specific concern. And of course you have also treated this topic separately.
The most common sources of 'cringe' happen because it's too easy to say things that come across as one-sided bias, even if mostly correct.
The most cringe-worthy things we say are things in defense of our process and doctrine (our natural instinct) but which can still come across as insensitive to those who are still suffering. This might be the very reason you mentioned that you can't persuade certain persons who have certain beliefs or experiences, anyway. As you already know, the latter type will not be satisfied with ostensibly "good news" that the WTS has only a percentage of other organizations. Or, a defense that claims that a large percentage of cases were not as serious as rape, etc. 

Another sage statement from JTR—he is firing hot lately, I can hardly believe it—is the above.
Yes. We want our people to be Rhodes Scholars who never misjudge, who easily hold their own among the brightest the university has to offer, and whose every utterance sweeps you away for its sheer brilliance.
What we get is a bunch of yahoos who make all the blunders that yahoos have always made. We should not run from this. We should embrace it. It is because Christians are derived from—the very ones taking the lead were—‘uneducated and ordinary.’ (Acts 4:13) They always remained so, by the standards of greater society.
We should embrace it because that is what God favors—“the uneducated and ordinary.” In the brilliant book ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ (which, brilliant though it is, cannot touch ‘No Greater Love—How My Family Survived Genocide in Ryanda’) I wrote of how the great ideas of this world’s thinkers
“all sounded good – heaven knows one can spin college degrees from them. But when put to the test – when placed under stress – they don’t work.
One might suppose that the architect of ideas that don’t work would be discredited. Bizarrely, the ‘doesn’t work’ caveat doesn’t matter. It is just the fine print at document’s end which nobody reads....Surely it is the fault of the little people below and not the great idea!’....It is that way with the bedrock ideas upon which this world is constructed. Despite being lauded to high heaven, they don’t work. Those who have earned university degrees in them do not sacrifice any prestige on that account. Instead, they go on to master other ideas that don’t work.
God laughs at the wisdom of this world, and in the passage above we see why. He says: 
“There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, but has not been cleansed from its filth.” (Proverbs 30:12) Tell them: “Show us the just world that has resulted from your brilliance, and then maybe we can talk.”
So we ought not run from our ordinariness. We should embrace it. When Celsus ridicules 2nd century Christians for being “labourers, shoemakers, farmers, the most uninformed and clownish of men,” don’t run away from that quote. Don’t try to mitigate it (as do most Christian apologists). Instead, say: “You don’t know the half of it!”
A frequent trait of all my writing—which is not appreciated by all Witnesses—is to give away many a fault, particularly faults that make some look ridiculous, as when Tom Irregardless rattles on for ten minutes in that instruction talk about a woman’s ‘ministerial cycle’ because he has forgotten the word ‘menstrual.’ He recalls only cruder terms that he knows would not be suitable for the platform. (This really happened.) There is a joke about the sister who collected $6000 dollars by selling eggs every time her husband gave a bad talk—and brothers collapse upon themselves telling that joke—yet no one will tell it within 300 yards of Tom Irregardless because with him it is no joke—it is reality. You risk hurting his feelings, “Why would anybody ever take that risk? In all your days you will never find a more caring, generous person than Tom Irregardless. If you need help he is there. You can pop in at the Irregardless home anytime; they are delighted to see you. They don’t wonder why you didn’t call first. Tom is an excellent man through and through, but only in Jehovah’s organization would he be a public instructor.”
[Actually, this is not nearly so true as it once was, since in recent years there has been more emphasis on speaker quality and less opportunity for them to mess up]
The point is not to humiliate people. The point is to glorify God. When great things are accomplished and the workers themselves are great, you can say that was the reason. But when great things are accomplished and the workers are yo-yos, the glory goes to God. So not only do I not hide embarrassing things—I highlight and even exaggerate them—always with 2 Corinthians 12:9 in mind: 
“But he [God] said to me [Paul]: “My undeserved kindness is sufficient for you, for my power is being made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly, then, I will boast about my weaknesses...”
I can now come to the main point of this comment, knowing that 4J will have stopped reading long ago and is now working up a retort about my being “long-winded yet saying nothing.” The brothers should have followed this strategy of admitting faults with regard to CSA as well. Rather than hope for the perception that CSA could never ever occur among a people devoted to God, they should have said: “Oh, yeah—tell us about it—we’ve had some of those slime balls, too, and let me tell you they are tough to deal with!” It would have all been good. We would not be having opposers who now carry on as though with the mission statement:
“CSA among JWs is very very serious and must be exposed! CSA among the 99.9% that is everywhere else? Stuff happens—what do we care?”
It would have been better if no one had ever thought it necessary to write that May 2019 article pointing out that the reproach of CSA falls on the abuser and not on the congregation. It’s a great article, and timely, but it would have been better if nobody had ever thought it necessesary.
When I used to be a bad boy and interacted with the malcontents, I would point out that the CSA is not prolific among JWs. They (the more reasonable ones) would respond with: “Oh, so now you are saying that you have the same problems as everyone else!” They accepted my premise, that we do abhor it and it is not prolific—it was the perception of self-righteousness that got them incensed. It would have been better to have given no cause for that perception, and it would be nice if it is a lesson internalized for future guidance.
It is very very difficult to be the required “no part of the world” and not be perceived as self-righteous, because the world automatically takes offense at non-participation. “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own,” says Jesus. “Now because you are no part of the world, the world hates you.” Still, I think we do unnecessarily bring trouble upon ourselves sometimes, and the above is a prime example.
 

Another sage statement from JTR—he is firing hot lately, I can hardly believe it—is the above.
Yes. We want our people to be Rhodes Scholars who never misjudge, who easily hold their own among the brightest the university has to offer, and whose every utterance sweeps you away for its sheer brilliance.
What we get is a bunch of yahoos who make all the blunders that yahoos have always made. We should not run from this. We should embrace it. It is because Christians are derived from—the very ones taking the lead were—‘uneducated and ordinary.’ (Acts 4:13) They always remained so, by the standards of greater society.
We should embrace it because that is what God favors—“the uneducated and ordinary.” In the brilliant book ‘Tom Irregardless and Me’ (which, brilliant though it is, cannot touch ‘No Greater Love—How My Family Survived Genocide in Ryanda’) I wrote of how the great ideas of this world’s thinkers
“all sounded good – heaven knows one can spin college degrees from them. But when put to the test – when placed under stress – they don’t work.
One might suppose that the architect of ideas that don’t work would be discredited. Bizarrely, the ‘doesn’t work’ caveat doesn’t matter. It is just the fine print at document’s end which nobody reads....Surely it is the fault of the little people below and not the great idea!’....It is that way with the bedrock ideas upon which this world is constructed. Despite being lauded to high heaven, they don’t work. Those who have earned university degrees in them do not sacrifice any prestige on that account. Instead, they go on to master other ideas that don’t work.
God laughs at the wisdom of this world, and in the passage above we see why. He says: 
“There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, but has not been cleansed from its filth.” (Proverbs 30:12) Tell them: “Show us the just world that has resulted from your brilliance, and then maybe we can talk.”
So we ought not run from our ordinariness. We should embrace it. When Celsus ridicules 2nd century Christians for being “labourers, shoemakers, farmers, the most uninformed and clownish of men,” don’t run away from that quote. Don’t try to mitigate it (as do most Christian apologists). Instead, say: “You don’t know the half of it!”
A frequent trait of all my writing—which is not appreciated by all Witnesses—is to give away many a fault, particularly faults that make some look ridiculous, as when Tom Irregardless rattles on for ten minutes in that instruction talk about a woman’s ‘ministerial cycle’ because he has forgotten the word ‘menstrual.’ He recalls only cruder terms that he knows would not be suitable for the platform. (This really happened.) There is a joke about the sister who collected $6000 dollars by selling eggs every time her husband gave a bad talk—and brothers collapse upon themselves telling that joke—yet no one will tell it within 300 yards of Tom Irregardless because with him it is no joke—it is reality. You risk hurting his feelings, “Why would anybody ever take that risk? In all your days you will never find a more caring, generous person than Tom Irregardless. If you need help he is there. You can pop in at the Irregardless home anytime; they are delighted to see you. They don’t wonder why you didn’t call first. Tom is an excellent man through and through, but only in Jehovah’s organization would he be a public instructor.”
[Actually, this is not nearly so true as it once was, since in recent years there has been more emphasis on speaker quality and less opportunity for them to mess up]
The point is not to humiliate people. The point is to glorify God. When great things are accomplished and the workers themselves are great, you can say that was the reason. But when great things are accomplished and the workers are yo-yos, the glory goes to God. So not only do I not hide embarrassing things—I highlight and even exaggerate them—always with 2 Corinthians 12:9 in mind: 
“But he [God] said to me [Paul]: “My undeserved kindness is sufficient for you, for my power is being made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly, then, I will boast about my weaknesses...”
I can now come to the main point of this comment, knowing that 4J will have stopped reading long ago and is now working up a retort about my being “long-winded yet saying nothing.” The brothers should have followed this strategy of admitting faults with regard to CSA as well. Rather than hope for the perception that CSA could never ever occur among a people devoted to God, they should have said: “Oh, yeah—tell us about it—we’ve had some of those slime balls, too, and let me tell you they are tough to deal with!” It would have all been good. We would not be having opposers who now carry on as though with the mission statement:
“CSA among JWs is very very serious and must be exposed! CSA among the 99.9% that is everywhere else? Stuff happens—what do we care?”
It would have been better if no one had ever thought it necessary to write that May 2019 article pointing out that the reproach of CSA falls on the abuser and not on the congregation. It’s a great article, and timely, but it would have been better if nobody had ever thought it necessesary.
When I used to be a bad boy and interacted with the malcontents, I would point out that the CSA is not prolific among JWs. They (the more reasonable ones) would respond with: “Oh, so now you are saying that you have the same problems as everyone else!” They accepted my premise, that we do abhor it and it is not prolific—it was the perception of self-righteousness that got them incensed. It would have been better to have given no cause for that perception, and it would be nice if it is a lesson internalized for future guidance.
It is very very difficult to be the required “no part of the world” and not be perceived as self-righteous, because the world automatically takes offense at non-participation. “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own,” says Jesus. “Now because you are no part of the world, the world hates you.” Still, I think we do unnecessarily bring trouble upon ourselves sometimes, and the above is a prime example.
 

At least you will never hear the cry from heaven—‘nobody here but us chickens.’

And don’t get me going on how I read his interactions with JWI:
“Dear JWI: I want to point out that you are wrong, but the trouble is—I don’t really know anything. Please supply some facts so I can tell you how wrong you are about them.” 
And JWI, with unlimited patience that is always hurled back in his face, obliges! 
Or maybe he is just like me—he wants to say what he wants to say, and he is not fussy as to what provides the pretext to say it.

At least you will never hear the cry from heaven—‘nobody here but us chickens.’

‘T.A. Form Application’—the T. A. Is for ‘true anointed.’ It’s the best I can do under the circumstances. 4Jah floats the idea that maybe they are all to emerge from the present JW community. You might even apply yourself if you and I both didn’t know that you would insist upon taking your chickens with you.
The very idea is so preposterous—a true anointed to appear out of who-knows-where at the final moments of this system of things, with just enough time for the true sheep of the earth to recognize, grab hold of them, and thereby save themselves at the final day. It’s just too ridiculous. 
And you emerge from it with some of the sagest remarks I have ever heard you make. This one, for example: “Those who expect perfection of others in all things, I strongly suspect will be judged by God, using those same standards... and their punishment now is having to live in a cartoon world of their ownconstruct, and being oblivious to reality.”
A “cartoon world,” “oblivious to reality,” and all due to expecting perfection in others—it could not be better said.
These extreme critics remind me of ones stuck in Phase 1 of ‘The Six Phases of a Project’
Phase 1:  Enthusiasm
Phase 2:  Disillusionment
Phase 3:  Panic
Phase 4:  Search for the Guilty
Phase 5:  Punishment of the Innocent
Phase 6:; Praise and Honors for the non-participants
And why are they yet in Phase 1? Because they haven’t done anything. Their role is 100% limited to pointing to the faults of others. The moment their plans result in any action, Phase 2 will immediately kick in—at least if history is any guide. (and there certainly is no reason to think it should not be)
What they should do is meditate on the book JWI cites: ‘No Love Greater Than This—How My Family Survived the Genocide of Rwanda.’ They should reflect on the study quoted within: “All the churches active in Rwanda, with the exception of the Jehovah’s Witnesses” were involved in the genocide. Let them state how their imaginary ‘true anointed’ is going to improve upon that!
 
And do not let any of these whiners pull a “who needs organization?” question on you. It is as you say, they haven’t a clue as to how “hominoids behave in groups.” Without strong support from a god-fearing organization, there is no way that the individual will stand before the steamroller with the devil at the wheel.
I have reflected upon your words ever since you first wrote them. You could not have said it better. They have judged without mercy. They will have their judgment without mercy. It may be true with other people as well, but it is certainly true with them. And in the meantime they become absurd caricatures of people.